Verisimilitude: A Ready Player One Saga
by Jarlaxel
Summary: Ongoing Saga in The OASIS and real world during the time periods in Ready Player One Novel by Ernie Cline. Chapter 0.0 will be the set up for the rest of the story which I will upload periodically.
1. Chapter 00

_**Verisimilitude:**_

_**A Ready Player One Saga**_

_**By Mito Allen**_

_**Chapter 0.0**_

Being a kid these days is kind of a bummer. It doesn't matter if you're wealthy or if you're living on the streets, the world today reminds me of the Mega Cities from the Judge Dredd comic books, especially my city, Reno Nevada which I call Mega City X.

Reno Nevada once dubbed The Biggest Little City in the world, now nicknamed by the locals: The Biggest Shitty City on Earth is overcrowded and rife with homelessness, poverty, disease, famine, and the occasional gang war. It wasn't always like this however. Even after the energy crisis and the so called Faith Wars. In fact, it seemed there for a short period of time that Reno Nevada would survive, maybe even thrive. We had Elon Musk powering the city with his Super Massive Gigantafactory which produced enough solar panels for all the rooftops in the city and more.

More and more tech billionaires followed suit and fled California. They began to turn Reno into a haven for the countries elite. They built enormous wind farms which covered the entirety of Washoe Valley in order to provide power for the city. Their connections, wealth, power, knowledge and experience brought all kinds of tech and medical advances which put Reno on the cutting edge of solving the energy crisis. They were coming up with non destructive solutions for the _Faith Wars_, finding solutions to worldwide disease and famine, they were even working on ways to improve the current political maelstrom, but then the polar ice caps melted. Once this happened no amount of fencing and border patrolling could prevent the more than 70 million residents from California to flee east to Nevada from the rising Pacific Ocean, and the city of Reno was in their cross hairs.

Welcome to planet earth, 2039.

Not all of it was a bummer though, only most of it. We still had The OASIS, and thanks to the wind farms and the rooftop solar panels we still had electricity, at least those of us lucky enough to have a place to live. If you were prepared, and when I say prepared I mean armed to the teeth, then you were relatively safe. It wasn't the violence that scared people so much as the homelessness and the diseases they brought which was the real worry.

California's politics and political correctness back in the late teens early 20's of this century backfired as soon as the gas pumps went dry. Once this happened the genius policy makers made all kinds of proclamations and empty promises. This led to laws which encouraged people to do absolutely nothing except tattle on each other. To quote one real world weasel politician: "Not to worry citizens, let us handle it. Everything is completely under control and there's no problem here. I'm sure we can count on all of you to let us know if there is. If you see your neighbor smoking a cigarette or discarding an aluminum can, text their name, address and violation to #badneighbor." What happened next was pure chaos. Nobody was safe and California toppled like a Jenga tower, metaphorically speaking. The smart ones got out early and took off either to Columbus Ohio, Reno Nevada, or to one of the other handful of Mega Cities which were in their infancy and inspiring more hope than anywhere in California was.

Once the wealth was all but lost in California, the entire state went bankrupt. They couldn't pay for any of the services they promised the people. Doctors, nurses and medical professionals fled so they couldn't provide proper health care any more. The jails became so overcrowded with its own tax paying citizens escapes were practically encouraged. The state defaulted on all of the loans made to them. State workers left in droves when the paychecks stopped, even after wages were cut in half and California's infrastructure came to a grinding halt. The federal government tried to step in and help but it was already too late and too messy to fix. The only thing which kept the remaining millions from fleeing at the time was the weather, and more importantly, having a place to live. Thanks in part due to the empty homes of the more motivated individuals who had the insight to foresee this and already made their precipitous departure. Even if it was 20 people in a 2 bedroom house, it was still a house and the sun still shined, well sort of. The U.S. government nuked the Mexican border towns to stop the border from being over run, creating wastelands in Mexico and many parts of the U.S. causing a nuclear winter, but still they stayed, then the sea began to rise.


	2. Chapter 01

**Chapter 0.1**

Even though wars were still being fought, the world was in chaos and on the brink of self-destruction, there's no doubt The OASIS brought the world together like never before. People on different continents were getting married, raising kids, getting divorced and then getting remarried again without ever meeting face to face, and in extreme cases never even knowing each others real names.

Along with the governments of the world, the United Nations was also using The OASIS. They built their own virtual moon where they put all of six of their official organs and then established a seventh, the UN International Virtual Reality Trust, or INVERT. This was the very first official political office created for VR and the United Nations was dedicated to solving the current global conflict crisis all around the world as well as to establish peaceful relations between all the nations of the world by use of The OASIS.

It was a massive undertaking due to all of the current conflicts on the planet, to say it wasn't going to be easy is an understatement. It did however provide a level of comfort for those in war torn countries, and it was doing a lot of good for many refugees who had run out of options. The best part about it was all you need is an internet connection, an OASIS console, haptic gloves, and an OASIS visor and anyone in the world could request assistance from INVERT. No government could put any restrictions on The OASIS thanks to Hallidays programming and the GSS lawyers. The only way it could be stopped was to not have The OASIS at all, which was nearly impossible. Even many North Koreans had The OASIS thanks to some brave individuals who had smuggled in tens of thousands of OASIS consoles during its infancy and because of the satellites in earths orbit which provided relatively fast and free internet for those who couldn't afford high speed connections there was no way to stop everyone from using it.

There are scientists in Antarctica who used The OASIS not just for research, but for staying in contact with their friends and families. The astronauts on the space station were using The OASIS. There were planned manned missions to Mars before the oil crash and part of the mission's long term objective was to establish a martian Internet there and link it with earth's Internet so the inhabitants of Mars could connect with the people of Earth.

There was so much goodwill out there. I recently watched a youtube video of a homeless man who was invited to celebrate Christmas with a famous hollywood actors' family in The OASIS and they gave him a virtual house which was valued at 50,000 OASIS credits. It was unbelievable how much the virtual world brought people together compared to what was happening in the real world.


	3. Chapter 02

**Chapter 0.2**

The world was very fragile and the United States was no exception. There was plenty of food to eat, even if it was mostly cereal, powdered eggs and spam. I was a 100% certified fresh Nevadan who was a Renoite and because of this I also received free electricity, thanks Elon. I live in the Eldorado Efficiency Towers located downtown Reno which was a converted mega casino. Most importantly I had The OASIS.

The Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation was created by James Halliday and Ogden Morrow. It provided us with an escape, an adventure and was now synonymous with the word Internet. It was the virtual reality the world had once dreamed of, it was a cross between The Matrix and V-World from Caprica

It changed the world, your world, my world, our world. A piece of hardware the size of a paperback book, virtual reality goggles and haptic gloves was all anyone needed now to become anyone, be anything, go on any cyberspace adventure as far as your imagination would take you.

Want to be the captain of The Starship Enterprise? Fight off Firefly Reavers while you attempt to stop Darth Vader from killing The Joker? Thanks to The OASIS you could, anyone could, and so much more. It wasn't just for the nerds and anti social, it was made for everyone. You can go to your job at a call center in India, take your lunch break atop of the Eifel Tower, then after work go to a 49ers football game then go surfboarding in Antarctica without ever leaving your home in Toronto. Public Schools were now the norm in The OASIS. The best part about The OASIS is it's creator James Halliday made it pretty much free, only a one time 25 cent lifetime membership fee was all it cost and you could enter this alternative reality that made reality the real alternative. Even though The OASIS was free nothing in it was, and the only way you could go on any adventure was to somehow come in possession of the current global digital currency, OASIS credits. You could get a job and earn it, find a loan shark and borrow it, go to a casino and win it, or steal an identity and liberate it. No matter what you did, if you wanted to be part of it, you had to have the credits, and credits are very difficult to come by these days.

Jobs were scarce, people were scary and I was scared. We all were scared though, we all lived in Mega Cities full of crime, poverty, disease and famine, so leaving your front door was a real risk, but a risk we all had to take if we wanted to survive. The odd part was the population in the United States had dropped by nearly 20% in the 2030 census, but mega cities grew by as much as 10 times their original sizes. Then it happened, the invitation, the glimmer of hope society needed arrived at the perfect time, as if by fate. OASIS builder and creator James Halliday died in the year 2039 and the world received the invite to the largest party in the Universe and it was a dead mans party. His death sparked a glimmer of hope in nearly every human being on the planet, why? Two words: **_Anorak's Invitation._**


	4. Chapter 03

**Chapter 0.3**

The media was making such a big deal that day, they were so excited to have such a story of hope in this land of hopelessness, it triggered a city wide riot in Reno, Nevada, to be known by history scholars as The Riot of '39.

History shows the city was on the brink of collapse before _Anorak's invitation_, but it was an evening news female weather personality, Erin Pfifer, who triggered the riot. She had given the forecast and once she was finished added: "Any one who has an OASIS console and visor could become one of the richest people in the world and never again have to worry about how to get by in their day to day lives, well shoot, just about every person in this town has The OASIS but nobody has the resources to win the contest, that is unless you're rich, so unless you combine your resources or steal them (she winked at the camera and giggled), you don't have a chance, now, back to you Tad."

She was fired that night, but it didn't matter the town imploded and the only riot in the history of Reno Nevada began.

I was sitting in my Eldorado efficiency apartment when _Anorak's Invitation_ was announced. I was so excited I nearly burst, and even though my parents were at work, I had so much hope I had proclaimed it was my destiny to find Hallidays egg and get us out of poverty. I began to read the almanac from the beginning. I was reading about the legend of Michael Jackson and how it seemed every decade after his death there was always some family who came forward to make allegations against him, and how Halliday both respected and despised the man. To quote the Almanac: "MJ was an enigma, a pop culture icon, a pop culture god, and one of the most beloved and hated human beings ever to have lived. I find it difficult to form an opinion about these abuse allegations. Nothing was ever proven, yet nothing was ever disproved either. I'd like to believe these stories are untrue because Michael played one of the largest roles in my upbringing, he changed pop culture forever, he defined the 80s, he was the 80s. It's not like OJ where everything was cut and dry(pardon the pun). No matter how you look at it, no matter if it was true or not, it was always about money. His entire existence was about money, his friends, family, girlfriends, acquaintances, business partners, it didn't matter who, all of them were out to bleed him dry. So when I examine all the evidence against him, then look..."

Bang, bang, bang!

All of a sudden there was a loud knock on the door. I looked at the peep hole camera video on my phone and it looked like two police officers were standing there, so I got up and opened the door and the first officer began to speak.

"Hi there young man, I'm officer Johnston and this is my partner Officer Domino. Are you Joseph Masters?" Officer Johnston asked me. He was a tall man, 6'2" and he had a neatly trimmed yet very thick black beard.

"Yes, I'm Joseph but everyone calls me Joey. That's a really cool name officer Domino. I was just reading Anorak's almanac. Did you know James Halliday was only in high school when he started Gregarious Games?" I answered with a huge grin, talking rapidly extremely excited about The Contest.

"Son, you better have a seat. Are you the only one here?" He looked around the apartment to see if anyone else was here.

I should have noticed the concerned look on his face, but my head was in the clouds. "Yes, my parents are at work and my cousin Duncan is at his girlfriends apartment, she lives down the hall."

"Which unit is your cousin in?"

"It's 1142, all the way down at the other end of the hallway almost."

Officer Johnston motioned to his partner to go get my cousin, then he continued. "Listen Joey, it's about your parents." He paused for a few seconds considering his next words then went on. "There has been an accident."

The look of concern on my face must have been noticeable because he immediately put his right hand on my left shoulder.

"What do you mean?" My eyes began to swell and even though I was 14 years old at the time I was a very perceptive kid and had an idea of where this conversation was going.

"Are your parents' names Jerry and Elaine?"

"Yes, and George isn't here!" I replied defensively, this was all too common for someone to make a Seinfeld reference as I was beginning to realize why he was here.

His attitude didn't change at all even after my remark. "Do they work for MTM? Um, Mule the Merch Delivery?"

"Y-y-yeah."

"Do you know whats happening in the city right now Joey?" His eyes widened as he looked across the room out our 11th floor window.

I turned my head and looked in the same direction he was looking."Huh? What do you mean?"

At this moment officer Domino returned with my cousin Duncan who was clearly upset, I turned my head and stared blankly at my cousin as he wiped a tear from his right eye. He then looked at me, burst into tears and gave me a huge hug. I began to understand what happened and my eyes began to swell. All the excitement I felt earlier from the contest had left me and was replaced with sorrow, dread and anger.

Officer Johnston walked over to the large panoramic window which spanned the length of the east wall of the apartment and motioned for us to follow him. He opened the curtain and we looked out at the city. From our 11th floor vantage point you could see the entire valley floor of Reno and we were located right in the middle of downtown Reno.

Prior to the oil crash, the faith wars, and all the pandemonium which occurred following, Reno was a sprawling city. It had grown in a decade from 200,000 people to close to a million. Reno shared its border with another rapidly growing city, Sparks. Reno-Sparks was a beautiful area. Nestled in the Washoe valley, named for the Native American Tribe who once inhabited the area, it was located on the Truckee river whose water started in Lake Tahoe and flowed northeast a length of 121 miles finishing its route at Pyramid Lake. It was a perfect four season city and had everything from world class ski resorts in the winter to sand dunes and salt flats which hosted Burning Man in the summer. There were trees as far as the eye can see and from the vantage point of any number of the mega casinos in the city you could not deny its beauty.

As we looked out the window of our hotel room all you could see were little orange lights in the distance, and they were everywhere. The city was on fire. We looked straight down from our room on South Virginia Street and the people were rioting. Fights were everywhere, people were throwing anything they could get their hands on but it seemed the Molotov Cocktail was the preferred weapon of choice and the people propelled them everywhere. As I was looking down I saw two men who were fighting over an OASIS console tugging it back and forth when a third person who was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask shot both of the men in the head then took the console for himself. I jumped when I saw this and the officer knew it, he immediately pulled me next to him and put my head in his side as he motioned to his partner to close the blinds. That is what I remember most about that night, and it is burned into my mind for an eternity.

The officers then explained to me and my cousin that they were friends of the security guard who was riding with my parents on their delivery. The delivery van was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when Anorak's Invitation went out. The van was mobbed by, well, a mob of people and they flipped the van on its side. The van was attacked on 4th street directly under the wells avenue overpass. Several people with crow bars and aluminum bats busted open the windshield, pulled out the armed guard and driver who were unconscious and disarmed the guard of his hand gun. They also got the keys from the driver and went to the back of the van, unlocked it and apparently shot my parents dead in cold blood. The officers ended up staying with us until the next morning and I don't blame them. I mean really, what could they do? The riot was so bad the city never fully recovered.

I don't remember much for over a year after this, only that my cousin got me a cat who I named Toodles. However, I do know I buried myself deep into The OASIS and into Anorak's Almanac. I never blamed James Halliday for my parents' deaths, he didn't kill them. I was angry at the world for a while but learned to cope with the tragedy and move on. A lot of lives were lost that day.

I am now 16 years old, the year is 2041 and the world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket. The Contest now seems like it is either a hoax or just made way too difficult to ever be won. I am ready now, ready for anything whether its in The OASIS or in the real world. I will never again be caught off guard. I have some money, I have a level 42 avatar, I have all the haptics one could ever need and my OASIS console is top of the line. I know the Almanac like The Joker knows Batman, I am prepared, I am ready, Ready Player One.


End file.
